Equal Opportunity: It`s Good Business

January 19, 1986|By Carol Kleiman.

The Reagan administration is dismantling affirmative action and equal employment opportunity enforcement. Yet, many companies seem still to have a real commitment to the concept of nondiscrimination: Advertisements for equal employment opportunity managers appear frequently in the nation`s newspapers. Without pressure from the federal government, you might expect a complete return to the days when the only people hired were young, white males, especially among businesses that do business with the feds.

Young, white males still get most of the best jobs available, the promotions and the raises. But not always.

According to Judith L. Lichtman, executive director of the Women`s Legal Defense Fund in Washington, who monitors federal antidiscrimination compliance, ``there are many major employers who understand their

responsibilities and legal and constitutional obligations.``

Not all do, of course, but even the traditionally conservative National Association of Manufacturers has endorsed the present mandate of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ``because it works.``

Most business executives are pragmatists; and, while some companies are delighted with the current dismantling of enforcement laws, others want to keep them on the books. They look at equal employment opportunity this way:

``If it isn`t broken, don`t fix it.``

In addition, of 128 chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies who were surveyed, 122 said yes, they plan to continue to use numerical objectives to track the progress of women and minorities in their corporations. They said they would do so regardless of government requirements. The survey was done by Organization Resources Counselors Inc., New York.

``The commitment to affirmative action varies from company to company,``

said Karen Clegg, vice president of the equal employment opportunity committee of the American Society for Personnel Administration, based in Washington.

``There are mixed signals to employers about what will happen to affirmative action in the future; so some employers have de-emphasized it. On the other hand, other companies seem to be just as committed to equal employment opportunities as they have ever been.

``However, if there is a change in the executive order (which governs employment practices of federal contractors), as President Reagan proposes, we will see a drastic change in attitudes concerning affirmative action.``

The association`s position is that the executive order should not be changed.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1982 there were 423,000 people in the personnel field.

Their jobs have long been complicated and spread over many areas. Now each will have to implement his or her company`s mandate either to pursue affirmative action or cast it aside.

There is no count of those who are equal employment opportunity managers, but large companies with federal contracts are more likely to have such a title.

``In smaller companies, the job is combined with the personnel manager,`` said Clegg, a human resource specialist.

Equal employment opportunity managers work with others in the company to derive goals and timetables, monitor the progress of the program, conduct in- house seminars on affirmative action and report to the top echelon. They may also be involved in studying or acting on complaints against the company, counsel employees who think they are being discriminated against and do community service work in the name of the firm.

A 1985 study by the personnel administrators` group shows salaries range from $23,400 for recruiting interviewers to $35,000 for employment and recruiting supervisors.

Without any pressure from the government, the First National Bank of Chicago is making a strong new effort to beef up its affirmative action program in 1986, according to A.D. Frazier Jr., senior vice president and head of human resources at the bank. The bank will identify 50 significant jobs at the vice president or higher level for minority employment.

The total dismantling of affirmative action hasn`t happened yet, and one labor lawyer said many employers still rely on its guidelines for their hiring policies.

``We work primarily for managements, and where the government has asked them to keep track of their hiring patterns, they have done so,`` said Barbara B. Levine, an attorney with the Chicago law firm of Katten, Muchin, Zavis, Pearl & Galler. ``The employers are making a good faith effort.``

Levine, who is one of five attorneys in the firm`s labor department, said the employers she works with observe equal employment opportunity tenets. What`s more, she said, they want to.

``Equal employment is good business,`` Levine said. ``It`s smart to have a good employee mix.``

The employers ``get more qualified applicants because they`re drawing from a larger labor pool,`` she said. ``They use the guidelines that have been set up to gain access to a work force mix, and then they work to improve their mix in a nondiscriminatory way.``

Smaller employers, the attorney noted, may have trouble with record-keeping requirements. That`s where Levine`s law firm comes in.

``We work with clients to set up efficient record keeping,`` she said.

``What I find is that many employers are enthusiastic about equal opportunity,`` Levine said. ``I think they`ve used the program for 20 years and it works. Now the system is in place and managers like to have a plan with measurable quantities and goals.